The End of the World
by ChicaFrom3
Summary: A look over Shannon Rutherford's life so far.


**_TITLE:_** The End of the World

**_AUTHOR:_** Kristen Kilar (chickadee(underscore)from(underscore)3(at)yahoo(dot)com)

**_RATING:_** PG-13. Angst. A bit of language. Oblique mention of rape. Alcoholism. Stepsiblings sleeping together. Teenage pregnancy. Child abuse. But basically, if you can handle watching _Lost _you should be able to handle this.

**_DISCLAIMER:_** _Lost_ and all related characters and plots belong to JJ Abrams, Bad Robot Productions, ABC/Touchstone, and some other people, all of whom aren't me. Come on, if I was brilliant enough to have come up with _Lost _do you really think I'd have time to spend writing fanfic?

**_ARCHIVE:_** Just ask, I'd love to give permission.

**_SUMMARY:_** A look over Shannon's life.

**_SPOILERS:_** Possible up through "Numbers". Definite references for Shannon's storyline up through "…In Translation".

**_PAIRINGS:_** Sadly, I could not get around making this Shannon/Sayid. Darn you, Shayid shippers! I still prefer Shannon/Sawyer, but as long as the show is making Shannon/Sayid canon, I pretty much have to deal, right? So this story is Shannon/Sayid. Mentions also of Shannon/Other, Shannon/Boone, and Charlie/Claire.

**_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_** Total and complete invention. I took all the tiny little things we've learned about Shannon over the series so far and tried to build a whole life for her off them. sigh Will probably eventually be proved completely AU. In the meantime, here you go, a character study of Shannon and a look at her life.

Muchos gracias to my wonderful, awe-inspiring beta, Myna/Allie/rah rah replica/niki blue/etc., etc. Love ya for ever, darlin'.

Please read and review. If you don't tell me how bad you think I am, I'll just keep inflicting more stories on you!

* * *

When you were five, your world was perfect. 

Daddy called you his princess and his baby and his darling, and he laughed with you, and he told you he loved you.

Mommy was always hugging you and letting you help with grown-up things like cooking and shopping and telling you how special you were, and how helpful, and how much she loved you.

And you loved your mommy and daddy.

Daddy told you stories at night about princesses and knights in shining armor, about serving girls who dressed up as royalty and married princes, and all the stories ended with _they lived happily ever after_, and he promised you your life would end with a _happily ever after_, too.

You fell asleep in your room full of pink walls and pink blankets, nestled among battered teddy bears and well-loved Barbie dolls, and you thought life would be perfect forever.

* * *

When you were six, your mommy died. 

It was long and slow and painful. Daddy called it _cancer_, a strange and ugly word to you.

All you knew was that Mommy couldn't pick you up anymore, and when she told you stories her voice was strange and breathy, and weird people in funny clothes were always sticking needles in her and asking her questions.

All you knew was that when you brushed her hair like you always had, a big clump came out in the brush, and you were terrified that you had done something wrong.

But Mommy said no, you hadn't done it wrong, it wasn't your fault, and then she cried for a long time.

All you knew was that in the middle of your sixth December, you stood in a cold graveyard bundled up close to your daddy, and watched the men in suits put your mommy in the ground.

When you were six, you learned that stories don't always have happy endings, and your world ended for the first time.

And you thought life could never be any worse.

* * *

When you were seven, your daddy stopped trying. 

Instead, he started drinking.

Looking back, you suppose he was trying to drink her memory away. But at seven all you knew was that he smelled bad and talked funny.

Then one day you were coloring a picture of Cinderella and Prince Charming at the ball, and you were watching TV, and you guess the television sound was too loud, 'cause all of a sudden Daddy was screaming and swearing at you. He kicked you in the stomach and called you a "useless, self-centered, whiny little bitch".

You cried yourself to sleep that night because he'd never treated you like that before and you didn't understand what was happening.

The next morning he cried and apologized, and he bought you ice cream and a new Barbie doll, and he let you stay home from school, and he hugged you a lot and didn't drink for the next couple days.

Didn't change anything. The damage was already done.

When you were seven, you learned that your daddy wasn't a hero, and your world ended for the second time.

And you thought life could never be any worse.

* * *

When you were eight, you got a new mommy and a big brother. 

Daddy didn't drink after he started seeing Sabrina. And he treated you nicer when she was around. He started calling you his princess again.

Sabrina was nice. She told you what a pretty little girl you were and said she loved it when you sang. She bought you sodas and toys and read you stories before you fell asleep at night.

Boone was two years older than you and icky like all boys were. He didn't like playing baseball with the other neighborhood kids, and he wouldn't play dolls with you.

But when two nine-year-old boys from your school tried to beat you up for your lunch money, Boone was right there, making them back off, forcing them not to hurt you.

That was the first time he rescued you.

When your daddy married Sabrina, you and Boone were allowed to be part of the wedding. You said you didn't want to be the flower girl because that was a baby job, so Sabrina let you be a bridesmaid. You got to wear a pretty dress and stand up in front of everybody, and you felt so important.

After the wedding, though, things changed.

Daddy and Sabrina both started working longer and longer hours and having long talks about money and why they didn't have enough yet. You and Boone were left home alone for hours and you learned just how boring boys really are.

And when Daddy and Sabrina _were _home, they were usually in bad moods. Sabrina didn't tell you how pretty your singing voice was or read you stories anymore. Instead she snapped at you and locked herself in her study to calculate how many more wedding dresses she needed to sell and…

And one day you were singing to Boone to amuse yourselves, and Sabrina yelled at you to shut up. She said you needed to learn how to be helpful around the house. She called you useless and swore at you.

When you were eight you learned that people aren't always like they first seem, and your world ended for the third time.

And you thought life could never get any worse.

* * *

When you were nine, you were a tomboy. 

Your Barbie dolls and pretty dresses had all been consigned to the back of your closet. You wore battered jeans and old T-shirts and ran faster than all the boys and threw balls farther than anyone in your class. You played kickball in the school playground and didn't leave until everybody else had, when the first street lights were coming on, so that you wouldn't have to go home to Sabrina and Daddy grousing at each other and Boone complaining that you left your clothes on the bathroom floor.

It worked, for a while. Sometimes Daddy would send Boone to keep an eye on you, but he never played, he just hung back and watched as you won game after game.

Then in the middle of a baseball game—you were pitching—you had an asthma attack.

You'd always managed to stave off attacks before. You kept an inhaler in your backpack and took discrete puffs when nobody was looking.

But this time the attack was too severe and too sudden and you couldn't find your inhaler in your backpack and you were panicking and everybody was staring at you and muttering in concern and _you couldn't find it _and…

And then Boone was there, helping you, finding the inhaler in the same place you always kept it, holding it to your mouth so you could suck in a lungful of the saving medicine.

You were okay, after a while.

But the neighborhood boys never let you play with them again.

They mumbled and made excuses but what it really boiled down to was that they were afraid of you having another asthma attack in the middle of another game.

Eventually you stopped asking. You started playing with the neighborhood girls instead. You tried to fit in with them, resurrected your Barbies and dresses, and pretty soon you were one of the most popular girls in your class.

But when you were nine, you learned that you _couldn't _do anything you put your mind to, and your world ended for the fourth time.

And you thought life could never get any worse.

* * *

When you were ten, you won the lead in the school system production of _Annie_, because you were the only girl in the fifth grade that could sing well enough. 

Your daddy said he was so proud of you and even Sabrina said you did a good job and Boone offered to help you learn your lines.

You worked so hard at rehearsals and even the high school cast members said you were the best part of the show.

You were so proud of yourself.

On the night the show opened, you drove yourself to distraction getting ready. Nicola, a high-school senior who was playing Grace, did your makeup and your hair and let you recite your lines to her.

You did beautifully on stage.

After the show, a bunch of people came up to tell you how well you did and how gorgeous your voice was and are you going to do any more shows?

Boone gave you a flower. A pink carnation.

Daddy and Sabrina weren't there.

They weren't there the next night, either, or the next, or closing night.

Neither of them ever told you why they didn't come to your show, and you never asked.

Instead you stopped singing around other people.

When you were ten, you learned that you couldn't depend on people just because you want to, and your world ended for the fifth time.

And you thought life could never get any worse.

* * *

When you were eleven, you were attacked. 

You were walking home because you didn't like taking the bus with Boone, who was thirteen and snobby.

So instead you walked.

Halfway home one day, three older boys cornered you and dragged you into an abandoned alley, covering your mouth to keep anyone from hearing you, blatantly ignoring your struggles.

They ripped your clothes off and…and did things to you that…

Boone found you later that night, still huddled in that alley, crying and unable to breathe. He brought you home and cleaned you up and put you to bed and told you he'd always be there to take care of you. He told your daddy for you and in the morning Daddy called the police on the boys.

When Sabrina found out, she asked you what you'd done to make them think you were "that kind of girl".

When you were eleven, you learned that it was always your fault, and your world ended for the sixth time.

And you thought life could never get any worse.

* * *

When you were twelve, you got pulled out of your math class. 

You got brought down to the principal's office. Boone was already there.

The principal had far too gentle a voice when he told you to sit down. That kind of gentleness in a voice sets off all your warning bells.

He said your father had had a heart attack at the office that afternoon.

He said Daddy was taken to the hospital but it was too late.

He said Daddy was dead.

He said Sabrina was on her way to come pick up the two of you.

You didn't cry.

Sabrina showed up and gave you a hug. She was crying.

You weren't.

You didn't cry at the funeral, either, and you didn't cry at home when Boone asked if you were okay.

Sabrina kept both of you out of school for a week and stayed home herself. She cried a lot and didn't talk much. Boone hovered over her and you both until you hit him and screamed at him to leave you the hell alone and then he just hovered over his mother.

When you went back to school everybody was just too damn nice to you, that scrupulous, very careful nice that still drives you crazy to this day.

And finally you broke. Your third day back, halfway through a lecture on _The Scarlet Letter_, you ran out of the classroom and spend the rest of the day in the girls' second-floor bathroom crying your eyes out.

When you were twelve, you learned that everyone would eventually leave you, and your world ended for the seventh time.

And you thought life could never get any worse.

* * *

When you were thirteen, you were a closet Star Wars geek. 

You saved up your allowance until you could buy the whole trilogy and then watched the movies over and over and over again.

You were in love with Han–c'mon, who wasn't?–and you wanted to be a Jedi like Luke and, hell, you wanted to _be _Leia. You had nightmares about Darth Vader or Jabba the Hutt coming after you, and about being frozen in carbonite.

You bought the little toy figurines and staged endless variations of Han rescuing Leia and speeder chases through the forest and Luke and Darth Vader's final duel.

Boone teased you about it mercilessly. Snuck up behind you and mimicked Vader's voice. Called you 'Shannon Solo'. Told you to "use the force, Shan" to pass the butter to him at the table.

He threatened to tell the whole school that you were a Star Wars fanatic. You told him if he did, you'd tell everybody he was obsessed with Star Trek, and that shut him up pretty good.

Star Wars was your escape. You could watch Han in the diner with Greedo and forget about the fact that you were stuck in this big empty house with Sabrina and Boone, with a family that wasn't yours. You could escape Sabrina's endless complaints and demands.

Star Wars was the only thing that kept you sane.

When you were thirteen, you learned that other people's worlds were better than your own, and you willfully let your world end for the eighth time.

And you thought that was all you wanted out of life: escape.

* * *

When you were fourteen, you overheard two girls in the school bathroom talking about you. 

They called you a "fat whore" and said the only reason the guys liked you was because you slept around since you were clearly the ugliest girl in class.

You skipped your next class and spent it crying in the bathroom stall.

Then you resolved to lose weight.

You ate dinner with Sabrina and Boone that night and immediately afterwards went to the bathroom and threw everything up.

You knew this was called _bulimia _but you figured you could handle it. You could keep it in control. Lose the weight you wanted and then stop.

You were wrong.

Within a few months it was controlling you. You avoided eating meals with other people—avoided eating at all if you could help it. When you did eat you had to immediately find a bathroom so you could throw up.

When you looked in the mirror all you saw was fat.

When you were fourteen, you learned that you had no control over your own life, and your world ended for the ninth time.

And you thought life could never get any worse.

* * *

When you were fifteen, you met Damien Anderson. 

Damien was a year ahead of you in school, but he didn't go to classes much. He spent most of his time in the courtyard, writing.

You caught him staring at you in the cafeteria.

Damien wasn't like the guys you normally dated. He had the grunge thing going on, dressing usually in torn jeans and dirty rock-'n'-roll t-shirts. He had a silver earring and he didn't comb his messy black hair and his brown eyes looked right through people.

You started dating him in September. He asked you out to a poetry reading and you thought he was insane but went with him.

By December the two of you were exclusive.

Damien was the first person you ever willingly told about your escape into Star Wars. He didn't laugh at you; he just looked at you thoughtfully and nodded. And the next day there was a wrapped gift in your bookbag, with a tag that said, _for your Highness-ness, from your Nerf Herder_, and it was a Star Wars book, _Heir to the Empire_, and you laughed until you cried.

Damien didn't think you were stupid or useless. He talked to you like you had a brain. He asked your opinion and your help.

You sang for him, the first person you'd sung for since you were ten.

By February, your whole world had wrapped itself around Damien Phillip Anderson.

When you were fifteen, you learned that people can surprise you in good ways, too, and your world started expanding again.

And you thought life, for once, was getting better.

* * *

When you were sixteen, you discovered that you were pregnant. 

When you told Damien, he hugged you and kissed you and promised that it would be okay. He said he'd take care of you.

So you and he ran off. And you got married.

You sent a note to Sabrina and Boone to let them know that you were Mrs. Damien Anderson now, but you didn't tell them about the baby and you didn't tell them where you were.

You ended up in Denver, Colorado, in a tiny little place because you couldn't afford any better. Damien worked two jobs, as a mechanic and a bartender, and you worked as a waitress, and those few spare hours you and he had together you spent finding things to prepare for the baby's coming.

You'd never been so happy in your life.

That should've been your first clue.

When you were six months pregnant you miscarried.

You cried for so so long and Damien wouldn't stop hugging you. He cried, too, and didn't talk as much as he used to.

You had a funeral for the baby. You and Damien decided to name him Shane Nicholas. You sang a lullaby to him and Damien read a poem he'd written for Shane.

Neither of you were the same after that, but at least you had each other to lean on, right?

When you were sixteen, you learned that the universe isn't even fair to absolute innocents, and your world ended for the tenth time.

And you thought life could never get any worse.

* * *

When you were seventeen, you got a call from a cop. 

He said that a car had hit Damien on his motorcycle on his way home from his bartending gig. He died on impact.

After the funeral you didn't do anything, except drink. You didn't leave the house. You didn't eat. You didn't answer the phone or the door. You just drank.

After about a week of that, one of Damien's friends called Boone. Within twenty-four hours Boone had flown out to Denver, packed up everything of yours in the house, and was flying you back 'home' to him and Sabrina.

Yet another rescue to tally up to Boone.

And you hated him for it.

You just wanted to die, to die and be with Damien again. Damien, the one person who had never judged you, the one person who thought you had worth in this world, the one person who loved you for you.

You decided that your father had had the right idea on how to deal with memories of lost loved ones, and so you set about drinking with a vengeance.

Boone was clearly worried about you, so you told him to screw off and found another bottle of vodka.

When you drank, you didn't feel anything, and that was infinitely preferable to the pain of losing Damien.

When you were seventeen, you learned that people couldn't necessarily keep all their promises, even when they want to, and your world ended for the eleventh time.

And you thought life could never get any worse.

* * *

When you were eighteen, you spent the year in France on Sabrina's dime. 

She said she thought it might help you shake out of your 'funk'.

Instead you spent the year hitting French bars, perfecting your pronunciation of different alcoholic beverages, and dating guys who smiled like Damien.

Jean-Michel was one of those.

He corrected your French and you giggled over his accent and he bought you lots of drinks with little umbrellas in them and at the end of the night he invited you to come home with him.

When you woke up in the morning, Jean-Michel introduced you to his son, Laurent, who had spent the night with friends.

You spent the next few months in Jean-Michel's pretty little home in St. Tropez. You got to know Laurent pretty well—he got to hate you pretty thoroughly—and you got pretty close to Jean-Michel.

Not too close.

You couldn't stop thinking that he wasn't Damien, and that he would eventually leave you because everybody eventually did.

Jean-Michel didn't mind. He told you about his late wife, Marguerite, and after a couple months he managed to coax out some information about Damien from you.

By the end of your time with him, you and he were pretty good friends.

So you ran away. You couldn't stand to be that close to anybody again because _everybody leaves_…

Sabrina cut off the money so you worked on and off and lived off the guys you were dating. Ran all around the globe, trying to outrun the memories; didn't work.

When you were eighteen, you learned that the memories are with you even when the locale is different, and your world ended for the twelfth time.

And you thought life couldn't get any worse.

* * *

When you were nineteen, you decided that you deserved more. 

Sabrina wouldn't let you at the money your father had left you, so you went the dirty route to get it.

Boone was working for Sabrina now and doing wonderfully, yay for Captain America, so the quickest way to get to the money was through his hero complex.

You met a guy who lived on the wrong side of the law – his name was Luke – and you talked him into helping you. You called Boone and acted terrified and told him you were in a lot of trouble. He flew to London to help you.

When he got there, you and Luke led him to believe that Luke was abusing you, and Luke got him to pay him off to leave you alone.

That money covered you for a few more months of drinking, but then it ran out, so you found another guy and did it again.

It worked again.

When you were sober you felt bad about screwing over your stepbrother like this, so you didn't stay sober very much.

You drank and you partied and you conned Boone and you pretended like everything was okay.

When you were nineteen, you learned that no matter how hard you pretended, you could never fool yourself, and your world ended for the thirteenth time.

And you thought life could never get any worse.

* * *

When you were twenty…well, twenty was just a bad year for you, wasn't it? 

When you were twenty, Boone caught on to the con, and the player got played—Bryan took the money and ran out on you and you desperately needed to keep Boone's mouth shut.

So your alcohol-hazed mind conceived of a plan.

You slept with your stepbrother.

No matter how hard you try to justify that to yourself, you can't.

You slept with your stepbrother.

You hate yourself for it. You hate him, too. After all, he knew you were drunk, right?

Even that doesn't justify it, and you know it, and so you hate yourself. You hate knowing that you would go that far to manipulate him.

You hate to think about what Damien would say.

When you were twenty, the plane you were on crashed a thousand miles off course, and nobody came looking for you.

You were stuck with Boone, the one person you could no longer stand to look in the face. There was no alcohol to kill the pain anymore.

You shoved _everyone _away. You were as bitchy as you could possibly manage. And when they looked at you, you saw in their faces what you always saw in everyone's faces, everyone except Damien.

You saw that they thought you were useless.

When you were twenty, you met a girl named Claire.

Claire was sweet and bubbly and your exact opposite. She was friendly to you and she never called you useless.

And she was eight months pregnant.

You remembered Shane every time you looked at her, which made you uncomfortable. But you hoped desperately that her story would have a happier ending than yours, so you tried to be nice back.

You saw her getting close to the rock musician who called himself Charlie, and you hoped that they would have the happy ending you and Damien never did.

When you were twenty, you met a man called Sayid.

Sayid asked for your help and relied on you.

He brought you shoes.

You had in-jokes with him about _the fish song _and he teased you about ending up an old maid.

When you told him about figuring out where Danielle's notations were from, he asked you what the song was.

And for the first time sine Damien and Shane, you sang to someone other than yourself.

You were terrified, God knows you were terrified, Sayid would leave you like everyone else did, and for a while it definitely seemed to be so. He drew away from you—and a heartbeat later you realized that this was Boone's work.

Locke told you that everybody gets a new life on this island.

You decided that in your new life, you wouldn't be afraid of being along anymore.

When you were twenty, you kissed a former member of the Iraqi Republican Guard, and you let yourself feel something again.

When you were twenty, you learned too many things to count, and your world ended so many times you lost track.

And for the first time, you thought that maybe wasn't such a bad thing.


End file.
